Appointment of Professor David Chard As Dean of the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development

Professor Jean Morrison, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer

One Silber Way Boston, Massachusetts 02215 T 617-353-2230 F 617-353-6580 www.bu.edu/provost

TO: Boston University Faculty and Staff

FROM: Jean Morrison, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer

DATE: March 23, 2021

SUBJECT: Appointment of Professor David Chard as Dean of the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development at Boston University

Last October, we announced the formation of a search advisory committee to help identify the next permanent dean of the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development (Wheelock). As you know, Professor David Chard has served as Dean ad interim of Wheelock since Boston University’s formal merger with Wheelock College on June 1, 2018, and provided exemplary leadership during this period of transition. After a national search process that considered several strong candidates for the role, President Brown and I are delighted to announce Professor Chard’s permanent appointment as Dean of the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, effective immediately.

Mergers of institutions of BU’s and Wheelock’s history and stature are never simple, and Dean Chard has brought the experience, stability, and vision necessary to help ensure the college’s successful integration into the BU community and its continued development as one of the country’s preeminent institutions of education. From the time of his interim appointment, it has been clear that Dean Chard – who’d served as president of Wheelock College prior to the merger – cares deeply about the faculty, staff, and students at the college, about the product it offers, and about its national reputation. The last two-and-a-half years of his leadership at BU have borne that out. Dean Chard has been a relationship- and community-builder. He’s been an energetic advocate for constructive self-assessment and improvement, working closely with faculty and staff to address critical issues around the transition, to bolster existing programs, and to launch exciting new interdisciplinary collaborations both within Wheelock and across BU’s other schools and colleges. His impact has extended beyond Wheelock to the University level, as well, where he’s helped oversee several key leadership searches, played a vital role in our 10-year strategic planning process, and been an active voice in our efforts to enhance BU as a diverse, and welcoming community for faculty, staff, and students of all backgrounds.

Dean Chard is a professor of education at BU and among the nation’s leading scholars in instruction for students with learning disabilities. He holds a PhD in special education from the University of Oregon and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and chemistry education from Central Michigan University. Prior to Dean Chard’s service as president of Wheelock College, he was dean of Southern Methodist University’s Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development for over 10 years. While there, he was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Board for Education Sciences – a board he would later chair. A prolific author and researcher, Dean Chard has published over 100 widely-cited articles, monographs, book chapters and books. He is a member of the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities, has authored numerous instructional programs on early literacy, language arts, and mathematics spanning K-12 education, and has directed or co-directed grants and contracts totaling over $15.5 million. A frequent presenter at national and international education conferences, Dean Chard has taught courses on behavior management, special education reading and writing, learning disabilities, and special education law. He has held faculty positions at University of Texas at Austin and the University of Oregon and has been a classroom teacher in California, Michigan, and in the US Peace Corps in Lesotho.

From our conversations both throughout this process and over his last two-and-a-half years as interim dean, it grew evident that Dean Chard is the leader Wheelock needs right now, with the right skills and experience, the collaborative, teambuilding mindset, the established relationships and respect, and the strategic vision necessary to guide the college and its talented faculty to further growth and national distinction.

Dean Chard’s appointment was unanimously approved this week by the Board of Trustees and takes effect immediately. We hope that you’ll join us in congratulating and welcoming him to this well-deserved, permanent role. We would like to thank the Wheelock Dean Search Advisory Committee for its meticulous work and standards in ensuring the success of this search – especially on such a compressed timeframe. Finally, we would like to give special thanks to the Wheelock community, whose valuable feedback during this process and whose dedication to their work, their students, and to one another have been vital to a smooth transition and to the college’s continued emergence as a leader in educational policy, research, and practice.

cc: Robert A. Brown, President Eileen O’Keefe, Chair, Faculty Council Provost’s Cabinet

Search Advisory Committee for the Dean of the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development

Chair:

Harvey Young, Dean, College of Fine Arts (selected by the University Provost)

Members:

Stephanie Curenton, Associate Professor of Education Leadership & Policy Studies and Applied Human Development; Director, Center on Ecology of Early Development; Program Director, Child & Youth Policy Certificate, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development (elected by the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development)

Jennifer Greif Green, Associate Professor of Special Education, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development (elected by the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development)

Amie Grills, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs & Research; Professor of Counseling Psychology, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development (elected by the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development)

Maurice Lee, Professor of English, College of Arts & Sciences (elected by the Faculty Council)

Nancy Lowenstein, Clinical Associate Professor; Program Director, Behavior and Health, College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College (elected by the Faculty Council)

Michael McClean, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Advancement; Professor of Environmental Health, School of Public Health (selected by the University Provost)

Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development; Professor of Rhetoric; Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning, College of General Studies (selected by the University Provost)